Fear: Trump in the White House, by Bob Woodward

Fear: Trump in the White House (2018), by Bob Woodward, is a relatively balanced attempt to describe events in the White House since Trump’s inauguration early in 2017 up almost to the present day.  Much in the book has already been reported in the press, either as fact or as rumor.  Woodward’s sources extend from various journalistic sources as well as interviews with people on or close to the White House staff.  The latter are unattributed.  That is, Woodward protects the anonymity of his sources and by doing so feels he gains deeper access to information about the inner workings of the Trump administration.  Woodward knows the names of his sources.  His reputation as a highly respected reporter for the Washington Post since the earl 1970s gives him a high level of credibility.

While the broad outlines of the first eighteen months of Trump’s presidency may be known, Woodward fills in with many details about rivalries and arguments and subversion by the staff.  His book precisely illustrates what the still anonymous writer of the infamous New York Times memo of September 2 claimed: that the White House staff often struggled to prevent the president from carrying out his worst intentions.  While the anonymous memo suggests a White House staff working together to subvert the president’s intentions, Woodward’s book reveals a deep and profound dysfunctionality, especially during Trump’s first year.  Staff members continually competed with one another to persuade the president about how he should handle economic, political, and foreign policy matters.  Chiefs of Staff Reince Priebus and James Mattis struggled to impose order, to conform the operations of the White House staff to existing standards and practices.  But many of the players, including Trump himself, didn’t care for procedure. His daughter Ivanka, when told by Mattis that she had to follow staff protocols, announced she wasn’t a staff member--she was the president’s daughter.  She could have access whenever she wanted. That’s a small example.

The profound disorder which penetrated the White House at almost every level following his accession to the office is the most disturbing revelation in this book. But descriptions of Trump’s temper and irrationality, his inconsistent thinking, his desire to be served only by people who told him what he wanted to hear, his lack of attention to basic issues, his willingness to have people appointed to various positions in government for which they had no experience or qualifications, his cavalier way of thinking and talking about important treaties and foreign relationships, his unwillingness to admit his mistakes, his reliance on an economic advisor (Peter Navarro)  whose views were at odds with virtually every other American economist, and his behavior during the periods immediately following the march of white racists in Charlottesville are equally bad. Not to mention Trump’s systematic efforts to undo and dismantle every forward-thinking program or law or policy adapted by the American government in the last sixty years.

Woodward’s book is simply one more argument for the unfitness of Donald Trump for the Presidency.